KFAI's MinneCulture Presents

Master and Servant   from Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening Grand town houses in the eighteenth century seemed to promise privacy. But in fact they offered anything but – the family home often included not just parents and children, but also elderly relatives, unmarried sisters, paying lodgers, and the nosiest neighbors of the lot… the servants . Professor   David Hendy of the University of Sussex eavesdrops on the whispers, gossip and scandal of the eighteenth century house, and tells the salacious tale of John Burt, a navy captain from Canterbury, who took his young wife Harriet to court for impropriety - on the evidence of his cook.   Slavery and Rebellion  from Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening Many slaves would have heard the sounds of home for the last time as they waited at Ghana’s Gate of No Return for a ship to the new world. Far away on the Carolina plantations they were expected to be quiet or to sing to demonstr...

Stories from Beyond the Border by Claes Andreasson In June of 1987, President Reagan stood in front of the Berlin Wall, saying: " Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! " Today, the United States continues to build its own walls along our southern border. The boundary between California and Mexico remains one of the most popular places to cross. Despite two fences, heat sensors, plus an increased number of patrol officers , hundreds of people still try to make it across every day. We will hear the stories of some who have lived their entire lives here in the U.S. yet were deported, failed border crossers, and the Mexican Border Patrol, Grupo Beta , as they go looking for migrants and trying to help them on their way.

The Hospital Always Wins   by Laura Starecheski A special hour-long program this week!!! We will be presenting an award-winning documentary from  Al Letson 's State of the Re:Union which takes a close-up look at love, guilt and forgiveness. Back i n 2004, producer Laura  visited a mental hospital  in Queens, NY . While there she met a handsome artist named   Issa Ibrahim who seemed to have no perceptible symptoms of mental illness. He was talented, charismatic, funny, engaging -- but he’d already been at  Creedmoor Psychiatric Center for more than a decade, and had little hope of getting out. So, why was Issa still stuck in this hospital? Laura’s quest to uncover the story took years to unfold and  revealed both the brightest and the darkest parts of human nature.

The Walker from Radio Netherlands In the space of seven years, Jan Visser walked 40,000 kilometers, the equivalent of the earth's equator. Producer Laura Durnford joins Jan for a wander through one of his favorite national parks, to find out why he has made pedestrianism  part of his life's philosophy, and to step into the realms where walking connects with human health  and cultural history . We will also hear quotes from Rebecca Solnit's book, Wanderlust , which argues for preserving the time and space in which to walk in our ever more car-dependent, accelerated world .

The Kuan Yin Statue from Bold Venture To honor Christmas baby Humphrey Bogart's 114th-and-a- half birthday , we will be airing an episode of his cult-classic radio program, Bold Venture . The show was a hugely popular syndicated serial which aired thrice-weekly from 1951 to 1952 on over 400 stations. It was recorded just prior to Bogart's departure from the United States to film The African Queen  and was later adapted into a television series. In each chapter, the captain's ship, Bold Venture, set sail for "adventure, intrigue, mystery, and romance ." Also, despite being a "quick-paced adventure story for the entire family," according to the star, "...we usually kill-off someone every night." In this episode, Slate Shannon ( Humphrey Bogart ) and his sultry sidekick Sailor Duval ( Lauren Bacall ) become involved with a deadly quest for a rare Chinese statue of Kuan Yin  which is thought to have been smuggled aboard.